Nicholas Stuart is a columnist with the Canberra Times.
Nick Stuart has written three books,
Kevin Rudd: An Unauthorised Political Biography;
What Goes Up: Behind the 2007 Election; and
Rudd's Way: November 2007 - June 2010.

Friday, October 24, 2014

BIG IDEAS BUT NO MEDIA

I wrote this piece for the Strategist some time ago, while I was waiting to find out more on Iraq.

Peter Leahy's article

It looks at the vital strategic context of the war . . .

THE LONG WAR – ON THE GROUND

‘Big History’ is all the go at
the moment. This is a (relatively) new way of attempting to explain what’s occurring
today by searching for deeper trends that are shaping events. Its popularity’s
understandable – particularly when we’re confronted by a world that we can’t
explain using the old ways.

The rise of Isil, for example,
seems to be a classic instance of an almost elemental force. A century ago we
might have attempted to explain its rise using the ‘great man’ theory. However
unlikely a candidate, we might have tried to suggest that Al Baghdadi, the Isil
leader, possesses unique abilities and charisma. That’s the way some explained
the rise of Hitler. This thesis was challenged – some say demolished – by
others as different as the polymath Herbert Spencer and the novelest Leo
Tolstoy. Spencer approached the idea from a biological perspective; Tolstoy by
harnessing elemental ideas about the nature of people and ‘Mother Russia’. They
would have pointed to the economic chaos of the Weimar republic, giving it a
central role in interpreting how Hitler came to power. They effectively destroyed
the idea that leaders are anything other than the products of their societies.

Nevertheless as individuals we
love a story and, as every journalist knows, wrapping events around people
allows a narrative structure to take over. It makes for a better story. It’s
also the way most of us, unconsciously, perceive the world. Today, for example,
John Howard. It’s so easy to attribute the coalition’s longevity in office to
his remarkable political skills. After all, he became the second-longest Prime
Minister and undoubtedly does have outstanding abilities. Nevertheless
hagiography’s inevitable, and so we brush aside other realities – such as that
Howard was lucky to form a government in 1998, even though he lost the popular
vote; that six-months before the 2001 election he was trailing badly in the
polls; and that in 2004 he was fortunate his opponent was Mark Latham. It’s
easy to imagine how minor changes might have re-written events. And how much
was the 2007 result to do with Kevin Rudd’s genius, and how much simply because
of the ‘it’s time’ factor?

Big History, on the other hand,
focuses on broader themes, searching for patterns. That’s what makes Peter
Leahy’s new ASPI study “Another century, another long war” (https://www.dropbox.com/s/hx7swlgpd7u5ivb/SI75_another_century_another_long_war_EMB.pdf?dl=0)
so very interesting. He erects a framework that allows us to isolate the real
issues driving events and place them into perspective. This establishes a
context that will be critical, because it’s the way we understand the world.
Importantly, he categorically states that any solution to the current situation
“must come from within the Muslim world”. Even more importantly, Leahy
emphasises we need to re-conceive ‘victory’. “It might only be partial; we
might only limit, but not eliminate, terror and radical Islamism and its damage
to secular societies. The focus should be on . . . the commitment of resources
over an extended period.”

This, of course, is not the sort
of thing a journalist wants to hear. Once a problem’s been identified we want
it solved- at once. So do most
people. Anything else seems lazy. When Tony Abbott declared we were getting
involved in the struggle to degrade Isil news organisations immediately
demanded action, preferably things that could be reported with TV cameras. The
politicians gave every indication they’d accede to our expectations. Troops and
were dispatched from Australia and journalists hopped on planes eager to cover
the clash. That’s why I’m in the Middle East now.

Except that we’ve been
disappointed. That’s because we didn’t understand the nature of this campaign.
We got two things wrong. Firstly, we built Isil up into a terrifying monolith.
After all, it emerged from nowhere; seemingly unstoppable. But we don’t really
know anything about it. It may be far more fragile than first thought.

It seems, for example, that just a
single, carefully targeted US bomb was enough to effectively blunt the
insurgency in the north. Only about 30 insurgents in Kobane were killed by this
specific bomb, but good information and targeting (and it’s difficult, here, not
to see the precise hand of American Special Forces) seems to have changed the
dynamic of the fight. Isil brought up replacements, but these weren’t nearly as
effective and, as a result, the insurgents have been forced to fall back.

Their big tactical advantage, vehicles
equipped with heavy machine-guns can no longer move in the open. If they do
they’ll be destroyed from above. Isil lacks the mobile firepower necessary to
dominate the battlefield. In another area west of Bagdad about 500 Iraqi
soldiers have been clinging to defensive positions for weeks. Their situation
is dire, but the key point is they haven’t collapsed and now they’ve got
support from the air.

The military’s actually meeting
the demands of the battlefield very well . . . the only thing it’s not doing is
pandering to the media and political demands to put Aussie boots on the ground.

No matter how you frame the
answer to the bigger problem of the Middle East, you need to begin with a
tactical solution. The West is doing this. Just not as quickly and decisively
as some of us might like.

Nicholas Stuart is embedded with
the Australian Forces in the Middle East Area of Operations.